Browsing by Subject "collaboration"

Corporate communications and management have had for a long time the conviction that they could project a specific brand identity by communicating a strong vision. Today this view is being challenged, especially with the rise of social media, which has brought more visibility to customer communities and has enabled better tools for customers to communicate with each other instantly, anywhere in the world. People interacting with each other in their communities give an identity to the brands, a collective identity that can be different from the one that corporate communications try to project. It is, therefore, necessary for the brands to understand how customers collectively impact brand identity. The concepts of top-down brand identity models do not work very well in today’s interconnected world. With that in mind, this thesis looks at a bottom-up approach to the brand identity model. It aims to bring further attention to the impact that brand communities have on brand identity. Through a model for collective brand identity, the objective is to make it easier for brands to see their brand identity from a customers’ perspective and enable them to envision their future collective identities. This thesis is conducted as qualitative research including a model, case studies and interviews looking into the brand identity as a collective construction. It initially looks into existing research on collective identity in general as well as in brands. Then, it discusses existing models for brand identity and social movements. Based on the insight from the literature, this study attempts to formulate a model for collective brand identity. It uses the case studies as illustrations and proof of concept for the model. Lastly, four in-depth interviews are conducted to explore further how the model can be applied in real-life in order to study and categorise brands based on their collective identity. This research identifies four main types of collective identity in brands based on the community characteristics and personal sense of belonging, which is, how individual identities relate to that of the brand. These brand types are Influencer, Collaborative, Collective and Outlier. In general, the more collective the brand communities are, the more substantial impact they have on the band’s identity and the higher the sense of belonging to their communities, the more loyal customers they are.

Objective. Empathy is essential for successful collaboration. Empathic mechanisms partly rely on receiving sensory socioemotional information during social interactions, such as facial expressions. Today, computer-mediated communication (CMC) covers a large part of daily social environments. However, socioemotional information during CMC is restricted, which directly impacts social processes and therefore, different empathic skills may become beneficial in CMC environments compared to face-to-face interactions. The impacts of CMC on social processes are insufficiently understood and studies provide mixed results. Physiological synchrony is a useful tool to study underlying aspects of social interactions. In psychophysiology, physiological states can be evaluated according to physiological responses, such as changes in electrodermal activity (EDA), which is a measure of sympathic nervous system activity. EDA synchrony is connected to empathy and collaboration in several studies. The purpose of this study is to reveal connections between empathic skills, collaborative task performance and EDA synchrony in CMC environment. Methods. EDA signals of twenty-nine pairs were recorded during collaborative task performance in VR environment. Participants were unfamiliar with each other and could not see each other during performance. Before the experiment, they conducted two empathy tests: Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME). The performance was measured and connected with empathic abilities using statistical methods. EDA synchrony indices were calculated for each pair, and were statistically connected with empathy and task performance. Results and Conclusions. The results surprisingly showed that IRI subscale ’personal distress’ predicts collaborative task performance in VR environment. Personal distress reflects emotional sensitivity and is conneceted to social avoidance and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. This result indicates that different social skills become beneficial in CMC environment, where participants cannot see each other, as in face- to-face collaboration. In addition, RME, which reflect skills in complex emotion recognition, was connected to performance on a trend level, which is supported by previous findings. EDA synchrony occured, but was not connected with either empathic skills or collaboration.

Environmental problems are usually complex in nature, encompass uncertainties and affect multiple actors and groups of people in multiple ways. Hence, managing these problems requires transparent decision making that takes into consideration diverse values, perceptions and knowledge of those groups. Decisions that are made in a participatory decision-making process are more likely to express public values and local knowledge than decisions made in top-down management processes. Collaboration has become a ubiquitous concept within the context of participatory planning and environmental management. It is used in describing a wide array of participatory approaches and it is often used as a tool in managing wicked problems. However, participatory approaches do not guarantee better success in solving environmental problems. Hence, it is crucial to deliberate what kind of approach is used and what kind of situations it suits. This master’s thesis examines Metsähallitus’ participatory natural resource planning (NRP) process through the concept of collaboration. The study encompasses two mutually supporting parts: a case study about Metsähallitus’ natural resource planning process for Southern Finland 2017-2022 and an equality analysis encompassing altogether four cooperation groups from natural resource planning processes. The aim of the study is to find out how trust building, commitment, social capital and stakeholders’ opportunities to influence decision-making were realized in the NRP process of Southern Finland. In addition, aspects of equality in natural resource planning are examined. Data of the case study consists of seven qualitative semi-structured interviews. Data is analyzed according to the principles of qualitative content analysis. Data of the equality analysis consists of six NRP cooperation groups’ participant lists and the data is analyzed with quantitative content analysis. Based on the results, opportunities to participate actualize most efficiently in the operational level of the cooperation group. The methods used and facilitator’s contribution enhance the realization of equality within the cooperation group. Stakeholders reported a few defects concerning equal processing of values and interests. For example, topics regarding forestry overweighs other topics. The representativeness of stakeholders was considered good. Representatives of public agencies are most frequently participating of all stakeholder groups. Every fifth participant was a woman. What comes to social capital, one of the main results was increased mutual understanding among stakeholders that resulted from learning from each other in the process. Stakeholders’ perceptions of their opportunities to influence decision-making were labeled partly by contentment and realism, but partly by a low level of expectations. Opportunity to influence in decision-making is a remarkable factor for commitment and motivation to participate. The context of NRP-process also affects the planning and its results, but further research on this topic is needed and I propose this as one future research topic. More research is also needed to evaluate on how one of the main principles of collaboration, sharing decision-making power, affects natural resource planning and its results, if adopted.

Objectives. The study on costume has mainly focused on the work and the artistic process of the costume designer. Realizing the design in collaboration with the costume designer and the costume maker has remained mostly unstudied. The aim of the study was to investigate the various forms of collaboration between the costume designer and the costume maker during the costume making process. The study also aimed to understand the factors that influence different forms of collaboration and to examine how they enable and promote productive collaboration. Methods. The data for the study was collected by interviewing four costume designers and four costume makers between May and August 2017. The interviews were carried out as semi-structured interviews, which best correspond to focused interview. Interviewees were chosen for their education and long work experience in the profession. The transcribed interviews were coded in atlas.ti with theory- and material-oriented approach. Qualitative analysis of the coded data was executed with thematic categorizing. Results and conclusions. The study shows a wide range of variation in the collaborative process both in terms of quantity and quality. Many factors influence the collaboration. These include professional expertise, attitudes towards work and the collaborators, the settled and personally preferred work methods, as well as the level of familiarity between the collaborators, communication between them and mutual respect. The production process itself, schedules and resources, management, division of work and atmosphere in the wardrobe also have an effect on the collaboration. Preconditions for productive collaboration consist of several factors, but self-respect and the appreciation for one’s collaborator seem to be the most significant, alongside positive, flexible and professional attitude.